Guitar-drone introverts, Johnny Lang revivalists, and bossa nova duos might never wind up touring the country together, but if there's one place they can all call home, it's the open-mic night. This tradition is so far under the radar of press releases and blog playlists that it's easy to forget how many musicians are making first-time crash landings every night. I devoted a week to hitting up some of Boston's open-mic hot spots.First stop: Lizard Lounge, between Harvard and Porter Squares in Cambridge. In the deep red shadows of this neon, womb-like subterranean pad sits host Tom Bianchi, a former subway busker who's evolved into a Louie-Anderson-on-Family-Feud-type figure for the singer-songwriter set. "Oh my God, where has this girl been!" he asks as an old regular makes a surprise appearance. Then he scolds her for taking too long to tune.
The Lizard Lounge open mic (held every Monday) is run as a contest where each person is given 10 minutes of mic time to plead his or her case. As we work through the night, there's a lot of Ani DiFranco–style pop folk and '90s radio-rock soul searching. A Phish song is covered. Manny Cardoso, a barber from Dorchester in sparkly Nikes, sings a slow-dance R&B jam over a glittery backing track.
It's an entirely different scene at Central Square's Cantab Lounge, a Rust Belt hang with 40-year-old beer logo mirrors and grungy Tiffany lamps. A leathery aftershave man takes a chill turn playing rugged blues; a greaser punk from Manchester, Massachusetts, does Shane MacGowan booze croons. Cantab regular Charlie Lew, with neat gray hair in a plush green velvet sportscoat with brass buttons, lays into the theme from High Noon with a rich, frowny-mouthed baritone and some serious Leonard Nimoy acting chops.
Geoff Bartley, a long-time folkie who spent the '80s on tour across the country, has run this Monday-night open mic since 1991. He calls up the performers on his list slowly, with a cozy, grumpy-old-man reluctance. "I'm a benevolent dictator. It's my job to entertain, so I'll always make sure I have people who know what they're doing to set a strong tone for the night, but it's also a time to get people up on stage for the first time."
Wednesday night at King's, the upscale bowling alley/club just off Boylston Street near the Prudential Center, I find a far younger operation. Maarten Reijnierse, a tall ex-pat from Holland, has just taken charge of this expansive room that brings to mind an out-of-the-way Vegas hotel lounge. "We're working on getting people from all over the city into this," he says, but for now the participation is skewed toward a certain music school down the street. "Okay, Berklee had midterms last week and it was dead in here."
A studious Mellencamp-esque four-piece follow a performance from a girl with a husky soul voice as Reijnierse gallops from the stageside soundboard to the back of the room trying to monitor the sound, weaving through tables opposite the black-short-skirted waitress. He thanks the band and calls up the next duo, who've gigglingly signed up as "Dirk Diggler and the Dude."
I find the loosest collection of weirdos at All Asia, just outside Central Square. I walk in to a duo of dreadlocked girls singing an ode to Barack Obama ("I think you'd be really great for my mom, Barack"); they're followed by a glorious rock trainwreck called the Warren Harding Era. Paul Sentz from This Car Up hops on stage to play the Cars' "Just What I Needed." People sneak over to the sign-up list and fiddle with the set order.
Bryan Murphy (also frontman of the Shills) is on his fifth year in charge at the All Asia Wednesday open mic. I ask him how, among all the other open mics in town, this one ended up being so lively and informal. "I think it's just me. Everyone here knows I'm sitting here getting drunk, and I keep it loose and I give people shit for leaving right after they're done and not supporting each other."
Back at the Lizard Lounge, it's 12:30 am, and the crowd is thinning. Three finalists are left. Bianchi, now totally sauced, heckles one singer, "Where'd you get that creepy beard?"
In the end, Kiernan McMullan, an Irish kid touring on his new iTunes record, wins out. It's his very first appearance on a planned two-year tour across the US and Europe. Bianchi gives him a wad of cash and tells us it's time to scram, waving at everyone and fumbling the soundboard shut. "See you next week," he calls up the stairs to whoever can hear him.
